Dil Kabaddi (2008)

I love this movie so much

For all the hype it got I was expecting a lot more!

Through painfully honest and emotional moments, the movie becomes irresistibly relatable

An old-fashioned movie made with new-fashioned finesse.

Watched the movie with very low expectations and the plot is about ultra-modern dinky urban marital crisis and its not too bad for an one- time DVD watch. With names like Irfan Khan, Konkana Sen, Rahul Bose - the tag "powerhouse of performance" becomes synonymous and hence there is hardly any flaw in their performances (Ifran pays homage to Govinda though!). Soha could have been better as "perpetual dissatisfied" lady. And yes, Rahul Khanna needs to do his homework. Payal Rohatgi was convincing as a "bimbo". Only time will tell the standing of Saba Azad. The abstract narrative is innovative and interesting. Songs are passable.

Dil Kabaddi is another "event" that fills the heart with joy. Just to see story-tellers (and not just star kids and diamond merchants) get a chance to create real cinema in Bollywood is so heartening. We loved this movie and so did the half-empty PVR audience, median age 35, if the constant eruptions of gleeful laughter are any indication.Unlike many good attempts, Dil Kabaddi does not falter in the second half simply because the director had a POINT to make. Maybe he has Woody Allen to thank for it, but this did not become a montage of slick shots against Mumbai's backdrop. All the humor and all the "slice of life" shots told a story. This is where the movie truly scores.The other reason for its success, of course, is the excellent casting and performance. Each character was well-etched, including the "almost correct" English grammar and "avant garde" dress sense of Samit. His pairing with an intellectual, stylish, smart Mita is not that surprising in today's aspirational India-- a lot of successful women are truly happy with a less successful husband. I also liked the minor characters of ex-boyfriend, office hunk and Chirag the lech neighbor. Their body language and motivations reveal a well-written character as part of the screenplay. Something so rare even in mainstream Bollywood cinema. Ditto for the sex-jokes; they were much more tasteful than what is dished out in family-comedy "U" rated movies every week. That said, the "Kaaya" character could have been better etched.Perhaps the movie targets a very specific audience, the mid-30s Indian, that grew up on Karan Johar's bubble-gum romance in the 90s and are "happily" married for 4-7 years now, like the characters in the movie. It is possible that this crowd will laugh the loudest, while those older and younger may find less to identify with in this story. They may yet discover it on DVD a few years later and laugh hearty. At its core, it is a story about our quest for love and our failure to recognize it when it happens. A tale of finding love versus our 'fantasy' of love.While some have panned the movie for it's shameless copy of Husbands and Wives by Woody Allen, others have cringed at the barrage of sexual jokes and innuendo. In my opinion, it works where Mixed Doubles (the previous multiplex outing about infidelity) failed simply because it does not hold back or have any intellectual pretense. The movie keeps you laughing almost the entire time and yet makes an honest observation about modern Indian marriages.The fact that it holds true for India 16 years after Woody Allen's 1992 original is a telling comment on Indian society playing catch-up with the west. For better or for worse...

Till sometime back, the three-letter word, sex, was considered taboo on the Hindi screen. But it's out of the closet now. Dil Kabaddi goes a step further it takes you inside the bedroom of two couples and makes you listen to the bedroom chat that they indulge in, bringing the sex lives out in the open.It tries to explore fields like sexual needs and fantasies in marriage but the movie ends up showing nothing but confused relationships .Dil Kabaddi is a humorous and exaggerated take on the dynamics of the relationships between married couples, without being judgemental. It reveals the internal dilemma of the characters as they struggle to maintain or easily let go of their marriages, to fulfill their deeper desires.Rahul Bose and Irrfan Khan have done challenging roles and same for the actresses Soha Ali Khan and Konkona. The film has been made keeping multiplex viewers in mind but it is not for kids and families. Even all multiplex viewers won't go for the kind of confusion concept.The question is not whether Indian audiences are ready for a theme like this. The question is, does the script hold your attention for the next 2 hours? Sadly, it doesn't!

First things first ....I really enjoyed this movie!!! This is basically a comedy based on the lives of two married couples and the numerous marital and extra-marital goings on that happen with these two couples. One could call it a mix of Life in a Metro with Pyaar ke Side Effects...... unfortunately the promotions on TV has not given potential audiences with this impression.The four leads are impressive. Soha Ali Khan has become matured into a little dynamo of an actress, good things come in small packages. Although I must say that i did not really like her with the short hair in the latter half of the movie. Konkona, one of my favourite actresses, is as always wonderful. She has captured the essence of the character and her dialogue delivery and timing is top notch....there are times in the movie that I am sure the audience had no choice but to be reminded of an ex girlfriend or dare i say it their wives!! Rahul Bose is back to form with this one although he has done this style of acting before in Pyar ke side effects. Irrfan Khan has officially become the SRK/AmirKhan/Salman Khan of the parallel cinema world ( if we can call it that now). He gives a wonderfully natural performance that endears him to the audience although we may not condone his actions in the movie. His dialogue delivery and timing in certain scenes make you really laugh out loud. His performance is probably the one that stays with you after you leave the cinema.There are a number of small but wonderful supporting performances in this movie as well but I have to mention two in particular : Saba Azad and Payal Rohatgi. The former is an unconventional beauty but she sparkles with her screen presence and wonderfully natural dialogue delivery. The latter 'item girl' is slightly grating on the nerves with her screeching but then we are not supposed to like her anyway as per the demands of the role. I still feel that she had the funniest sequence in the file. PLease take note of the 'dumb blonde' like scene at the party.Kudos to the director, script writer and also to the dialogues writer since they managed to deliver a tight, taut film that does not flag at all after the interval. Nor does it veer off into melodramatic saga a la Karan Johar's KANK. ALso a special mention to the song from Rahet Fateh Ali Khan, the man has magic in his throat.There may be only one downer to the whole experience as some of the topics like sex and extra marital affairs would not be condoned by the family audience (hence a rating of only 7) but no one can deny that things like this are happening daily in todays metropolitan cities